AAWSAP DIRD, Maverick Inventor Versus Corporate Inventor: Where Will the Next Major Innovations Arise, March 2010

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Maverick Inventor
Most of the easy combinations of components and materials have been investigated
repeatedly since the time of Michael Faraday. However, it is still to this "low-hanging
fruit" that the average maverick inventor is drawn for inspiration. For example, in the
area of energy innovation, it is still attractive to many inventors to try various
combinations of permanent magnets and wire to try to improve the efficiency of
modern electrical machinery, or better yet, claim to extract possibly limitless energy
from these magnets. The average energy inventor is not bothered by pesky Laws of
Energy Conservation or that the devices he is spending endless time on have been
investigated hundreds of times before.
There is also the role of the media, most important the Internet, in continuing to
stimulate the creativity of the maverick inventor. Movies continue to depict the lone
genius saving the planet via some invention, be it a physical weapon or a piece of
computer code. This no doubt propels succeeding generations to believe that they may
one day single-handedly develop a new free-energy or antigravity device and save the
planet. Unfortunately, the Internet has fostered the belief that new inventions,
especially in the areas of energy generation and gravity control, are relatively
straightforward- one simply needs the correct comb,ination of macroscopic components.
One of the disadvantages of the access to apparent technological innovation that the
Internet provides is to foster and maintain intellectual and experimental laziness. This
manifests itself in many ways, principally in that the prospective inventor increasingly
believes that simply spending a few minutes on the Internet can give him all the
background information about who has done what in a particular field of invention.
Indeed, the would-be inventor does not even need to leave his chair and physically
investigate the situation himself. A corollary concern is the lack of information on prior
attempts that is available to maverick inventors. Whereas the corporate inventor has
immediate access to a broad range of technical resources, including patents and
scientific and technical publications, the cost of these resources and their publicly
accessible concentration in university libraries drive the average maverick inventor to
rely solely on the Internet. Fortunately there are now positive signs that at least as far
as "free energy" and antigravity are concerned, there are Internet sites trying to be
repositories for failed inventions in these areas (Reference 1, 2).
Another major problem is the decreasing reliance on a sound technical education, either
in the sciences or in engineering. Why bother enduring 4 years of an extremely difficult
undergraduate program when all the answers are right there on the computer screen. It
is the age of instant, albeit self-proclaimed, geniuses. No need to bother with correct
measurement procedures or proper control experiments when you can publish the
results of your studies on YouTube without bothersome peer review.
So how might one characterize the maverick inventor? Useful categories of maverick
inventors (assumed to be in the context of the late 20th and early 21st centuries)
might include the following types:
•
Individual with no formal training and little money.
•
Individual with no formal training and some money.
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